


I Still Believe in Sherlock Holmes

by InnerSpectrum



Series: February 2021 Johnlock Prompt Challenge [26]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: February 2021 Johnlock Prompt Challenge, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:35:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29774172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnerSpectrum/pseuds/InnerSpectrum
Summary: Lestrade tries to deal with Anderson's latest chapter in his Sherlock obsession ...
Relationships: Philip Anderson & Greg Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Series: February 2021 Johnlock Prompt Challenge [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138172
Comments: 6
Kudos: 19
Collections: February 2021 Johnlock prompt challenge from ohlooktheresabee





	I Still Believe in Sherlock Holmes

**Author's Note:**

> February 2021 Johnlock Prompt Challenge from ohlooktheresabee. Prompt: Mystic

“Greg please! Just meet him!” Phillip Anderson pleaded with his former boss as he pointed to an old man near a bench not to far from them.

Greg Lestrade met up with Anderson with every couple of weeks. As one of the few friends he had left from _before_ , Phillip knew Greg showed up mostly to keep tabs on him, and maybe a touch of pity. The guilt from Sherlock’s suicide had hit Phillip hard. Greg was with Anderson when a summer carny set up in a car park in an outer borough. On a whim Phillip had slipped a 50p into some fortune telling machine and out came a slip of paper: _Sherlock Holmes Lives_.

It ignited something in the depressed man. Greg was just happy to see any spark of life in the forensic doctor he accepted the burgeoning obsession. Lestrade appeared at Phillip’s flat a few weeks ago on a whim and saw the walls of Anderson’s evidence. Now, Phillip has somehow met this old man that he insists Lestrade should meet.

Greg looked at the elderly man. The man has a large white bushy beard and matching eyebrows, his hair under a dirty headwrap, was long and scraggly as though it had not seen a brush, let alone shampoo, in days. The ill-fitting clothes consisted of layers of tunics in shades of blue and brown, and loose trousers; all of which have seen better days. Nails dirty and a little too long, peeked out from tattered fingerless gloves and scratched at a trouser leg. He might have been tall once, but age has bowed his spine. Still, there was something about the man.

He looks at his watch. He needed to head back to NSY, but he knew Phillip was determined. Well, so was he.

“Fine, I got to get back. Let’s get this over with.”

Phillip just short of grabbed his arm and pulled before he changed his mind.

“Mystic Marcus?” Phillip addressed the man, who raised a hand that silenced him.

“If you can teach me that trick to shut him up like that, this will have been worth it.” Greg looked between the two men and barely held his derision in check.

He looked up at Greg, dark eyes almost hidden behind the dark sunglasses, “From disbelievers are not receptacles made.”

The south-west England accent that was so thick, it almost sounded like a mockery, was the last straw. “Look, Phil I can’t. No.”

With his disbelief on full display, Greg addressed the old man.

“Look Mystic Marcus, Mage Mitchell, Magic Mike, whatever…”

“Greg!”

“Shut it, Phil. I can’t!” Greg snapped at him, then returned to look at the old man, “Look, nearly two years ago I lost a beloved friend. Phil lost a colleague. And we both hurt in our own ways still. And in all honesty, once I’d made my peace with my share of what happened, I spent the first months praying for some kind of Lazarus. Because if anyone could pull off a Lazarus stunt it would have been that bastard. I went to a church for the first time in years and prayed for it, I did. But not because I missed him and wanted him back, which I did, and still do, but because how his absence has affected his brother.” Greg had no idea why he still spoke to the man, but he could not seem to stop, so he continued, “I have learned to see past most of his façade. He misses him deeply and I wish more than anything that me, and the handful of others who honestly believed in him before he died, could give him his brother back. But dead is dead. So, I don’t know what tales you have told my friend here, but I need you to stop this.” Greg looked to Anderson again fighting tears. “The living can’t live by hanging on to the dead. Your club that celebrates him is one thing, but the rest? Just stop this, Phil. Can you do that? Just for me, just stop it!”

“Greg, all Marcus does is get the truth out of people. That is his only so-called _magic_.” Phillip looked at him stunned. “So, you… though you don’t want to, you still hope that he’s out there too don’t you?”

There was a silence that hung loud between them before Greg finally shook his head in the negative.

“No Phil, I don’t, that is my point. And I have to ask you to not go anywhere near John Watson with it again. John finally realized he loved Sherlock when it was too late. He’s just starting to live again, but he’s barely hanging on. Don’t take him down that road. It will break him. Can you at least not do that?”

There was another long silence before Phillip nodded and walked away without another word. Greg turned to the old man again.

“Lies, they are yours, but wrong did not you do.” The old man broke the silence between them.

Greg started to deny it, but the old man held up his hand and silenced him as he had Anderson and simply looked at him. They both knew Phillip was right, that he still hoped Sherlock Holmes was out there as much as Phillip Anderson.

“Places go, you must now. Go then.”

After a moment Greg simply nodded in acceptance of that truth and walked away with one thought in his mind as he headed back to NSY:

_I still believe in Sherlock Holmes_


End file.
